65 inch SEIKI plus new Mac Pro

[Neil W. Smith]

Just spent the week at CES in Vegas and 4K was everywhere ... just have a look at this post CES report by Jeremiah Karpowicz up on Pro Video Coalition:

http://provideocoalition.com/pvcexclusive/story/the-sights-and-sounds-of-ces-2014

Most of the major TV vendors had UHDTVs highlighted on their booths showing a wide range of 4K/UHDTV content ... I have to say that certain content works very well in 4K and other stuff is blah ... 4K per se is not going to set the consumer market on fire but 4K with the right content is stunning ... sports, high-tech, high detailed images really work well .. we had some 4K uncompressed images playing on the the NanoTech booth from a company called 'Moving Murals' which were quite breathtaking:

http://www.movingmurals.com

Anyways, drove back across the desert to LA with a 65 inch SEIKI in the back of the truck and just finished setting it up with the new Mac Pro cylinder and ARECA Thunderbolt storage playing 3840 x 2160 digital footage at 30 Hz ... very nice ... definitely an improvement on the 50 inch SEIKIs we've been selling for the last six months. SEIKI have put a new image processor in the panel and the 29.97 fps 4K footage played back very smoothly at 30 Hz.

The other thing that struck me at CES is that size matters! ... with 4K, bigger is definitely better ... 50 inch panels are OK but the 65 inch seems to be the sweet spot for seeing the difference ... and of course the 77 inch curved LGs were totally stunning if somewhat expensive.

I've attached a couple of photos of the 65 inch SEIKI in action with FCP X 10.1 and the nMP .... I also had the 50 inch and 39 inch SEIKi's close by to give you a sense of proportion.

Will be bringing the 65 inch SEIKI and nMPs plus ARECA Thunderbolt 2 RAID plus MAGMA Thunderbolt 2 expansion chassis to Larry Jordan's '4K POWER UP' training day on Tuesday and to the Society of TV Engineers monthly meeting on Thursday night and to our monthly X Pro event on Saturday ... if you live in the LA area and want to see this cost-effective combination in action come along to one of the events.

We'll also be selling some nifty 4K package solutions if you uninterested in upgrading to the nMPs with Thunderbolt 2 storage and 65 inch UHDTVs ... what this combination proves is that it's now becoming very affordable to shoot and post in 4K without breaking the bank ... the NanoTech 4K NP1 streaming box for $299 also means that folks are going to be able to watch 4K content streaming into their homes very shortly.

Exciting times for all 4K content creators.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Les Dittert]

Neil, the pink elephant in the room is 24 p, did they fix this?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Neil, the pink elephant in the room is 24 p, did they fix this?

+1

New image processor sounds promising, but I need to know if they fixed the 24fps issue. Also would be nice if they improved their 4K upscaling because even the most pristine 1080p footage sent to the 50 and 55 inch SEIKI looks like mushy poo.

 

[Neil Cronin]

You need 120hz panel refresh to get 24 fps playback lock, no? I wish more info made a clearer context distinction between hz and fps.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You need 120hz panel refresh to get 24 fps playback lock, no? I wish more info made a clearer context distinction between hz and fps.

Or 24Hz. Or any proper multiple of 24Hz. The 39 and 50 inch SEIKI displays are capable of 120Hz. However, when they are operating at full raster 3840x2160 mode they lock at 30Hz even when a 24fps/ 24Hz signal is driving the image. So frames are duplicated or the 24fps is "pulled up" to 30Hz and we see judder. I don't know about the 55" SEIKI as I have not tried it myself or heard a concise report. It does seem that those in PAL regions or with appropriate PAL hardware will have the display sync at 25Hz, so 24fps playback isn't as dodgy.

I think it's very misleading for manufacturers to claim their displays support 24fps when they can't in fact play back imagery at a proper 24fps rate.

Curious that Neil is talking about 30Hz/29.97fps playback of UHD on the 65" SEIKI. Makes me wonder if it's because most of his 4K showcase stuff has been 30fps to accommodate his other SEIKI displays and/ or possibly the new 65" as well? No one is finishing, delivering, accepting UHD at 30Hz to my knowledge. Everyone is dealing in 24fps and now 50/60 fps with HDMI 2.0 hitting the market.

Does the new 65" support HDMI 2.0?

 

[Neil Cronin]

I think it's very misleading for manufacturers to claim their displays support 24fps when they can't in fact play back imagery at a proper 24fps rate.

I don't have the patience to read the full UHD spec, but my understanding is that it specifies that "UHD" displays must do at least 120Hz panel refresh. I don't think "HDTV" ever had a panel refresh spec, but I think it did specify playable frame rates. Not sure what the minimum bar was to do with 24fps content. It might have been juddering the playback. Every 1080p screen I've had has been 120Hz, locking to 24fps fine.

The Seiki displays seem to claim to be "UHD", but the model numbers aren't mentioned here, so I'm not certain. Maybe they don't claim to be "UHD"?

This is a worry I have with the Dell displays and the Sharp displays. I don't think either claim to be "UHD", since they are not really "televisions", so I'm not sure that they can ever do 24fps without a pull up. Seems unlikely that Apple would sell and ship a display that can't do 24fps, but still it's not clear by the labels on the box.

Any non-speculative actually-correct info on this subject would be appreciated! I may be confusing the HDMI spec with the HDTV/UHD spec.

-n

 

[Mark Pavy]

Connect via Ethernet or Wi-Fi to any network with 6Mbit/s or greater1 and start watching TV in Ultra High Definition.

I've looked at the NanoTech 4K NP1 and have a question regarding this quote from their website. What does the little 1 relate to next to greater? It's not listed on the website. Are they streaming all the 4K h.264 at 6mb/s?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Neil, the pink elephant in the room is 24 p, did they fix this?

Bueller?

 

[Kwan Khan]

Any more reviews on this 65"?
Its on Sale for $999 now, or I should wait for Seiki Pro